Daily Yellowstone journal., 1887-05-28
STORM EFFECTS ON MENTALITY.
George sand's Experiment. In Novel
Writing-How Literature suffers.

George sand's Experiment In Novel
writing-How Literature Suffers.
II has been argued, with more or less
warmth, that ones disposition is largely
affected by the kind of weather which
prevails when one is born. While this
is possible, it is also fanciful, and but few
put any faith in it. There is, however,
another weather phenomenon in which l
believe; l am convinced that thought is
influenced, in a very considerable de-
gree, by the weather. My notice was
first drawn toward this by a line in one
of Voltaire's letters, in which he said:
'sMy work has been mucky to-day be-
cause the weather was mucky." From
this time ON / took close and careful &C
count of my mental condition during
various kinds of weather. would
begin writing, full of the encouraging
impetus which the weather gave me, and
glad that l was able to do something
which would be apart and separate from
my nervous, dismal self; and then a
storm would swoop down upon me, and
with dolorous scratch my pen would
clothe dolorous thoughts in even more
dolorous words. When the storm was
cleared, and the sun shone again, / would
once more find myself able to make the
things which ! wrote as blithe and buoy
ant as the weather. Storms always dis
turb me-sometimes they depress me,
and make me feel fearful without know
ing why. 1t is very hard to write mots
which sparkle and glitter with mirth
when ones heart is heavy and somber
Just as it is difficult to write dirges
when one feels like railing and joking.
And so fair weather is best suited to the
writing of comedies and foul weather
to the writing of tragedies.
Once, as an experiment, ! planned two
novels to be worked on simultaneously.
The one plot was shaped during a stormy
period, and the other during q brief
season of sunshine and summer glory
which Immediately followed. Whenever
it was stormy / worked upon the storm
planned novel, and whenever the wealth.
er was bright / worked upon the other.
In each instance l wholly surrendered
myself to the moods which the weather
stirred up within me, and made no effort
to shake off the good cheer of the n or
the dependency with which the other
encompassed me. As a result, the novel
upon which was settled no shadow of the
storm faint was cheerful and good
humored; but the other was 8 bitter,
mournful and vindictive that l never
printed it. In each of these cases, of
course, / allowed myself to be wholly
moved and swayed by atmospheric ten
denotes; and though lost the profits of
several weeks of literary labor, l learned
an invaluable lesson. ! saw that by
properly terrifying myself, and by max
ing the right kind of struggle, / could
resist yielding to both the dangerous
flavor Of soft sweetness which sunny
skies induced and also, in the SAME
way, to the spitefulness and melancholy
which were the legacy and gift of the
storm spirit. That is, ! succeeded in
partially overcoming the influences and
effects of the weather and at all times
in keeping myself in a mental condition
of passable erenness.
The complete and perfect disentangle-
ment of ones mental action from such
phenomena is, to me, an impOssibility;
and il in some degree enables me to
understand why l wrote so much in
..Lelie" which ! have since SO often re-
GREETED. Why should it be
otherwise? We are 50 sensitively consti-
tuted that we must, of necessity, be
affected by the alterations of storm and
sunshine. The more exquisite the per-
sonality, the stronger the influence; and,
in the case of invalids, the effect is
more considerable than it is in persons of
sound health. Women feel storm effects
more keenly than men, and the young
more keenly than the old. The nerves
are the storms most resistless slaves, and
the phlegmatic escape it altogether. 80
Many writers never once touch a pen
during stormy weather, and others can
only write clearly and forcibly with a
tempest shrieking about their windows.
Poets and artists suffer most from storms;
the latter far more than would seem
likely on mere casual thought. Many a
picture has been spoiled by having its
last touches laid on when il wal storm
ing. Coloring, whether verbal or pig
mental, takes much Of its tone from sky
and atmosphere.
Literature, more than anything else,
suffers under the malignity Of storms, be-
cause all literary effort is the picturing Of
moods and emotions in words. As chill
dren resemble those who beget them, so
words are like those who utter them, and
the words which are wrung from us by
pain are not likely to win us many smiles
from those who hear them. We speak
as we feel, and our feelings are the re-
Election of our conditions and circum-
stances. The shipwrecked sailor, half
drowned, and wet to the skin in some
wild, wintry sea, will scarcely 20 into
raptures over the pleasures and benefits
Of salt water bathing, and the man who
writes of the wooing of young lovers,
when fierce blast seems bent on beating
in his study windows, cannot be Justly
blamed II what his hero whispers into
the ears Of his heroine is something after
the fashion Of a death kneI.-George
Sand in North American Review.